All procedures were approved by the University of Kentucky Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and strictly followed the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (NRC, 1996). Fifty-one adolescent male Sprague-Dawley rats (Charles River Laboratories; Portage, MI) were individually housed on a 12 h light/dark schedule. Rats arrived on approximately postnatal day 28 and were allowed to acclimate to the animal facility with food and water available ad libitum, except during alcohol treatment. At postnatal day 35, an age corresponding to mid adolescence (Spear and Brake, 1983), rats were administered a nutritionally complete alcohol diet (25% ethanol w/v in Vanilla Ensure®; n=26) or control diet (n=25) via intragastric gavage every 8h for 4d following the modified Majchrowicz (1975) binge model (Nixon and Crews, 2004). An initial 5 g/kg dose was given with subsequent doses titrated according to the behavioral intoxication state of the rat as assessed with a six point scale: 0-normal rat (5 g/kg), 1-hypoactive (4 g/kg), 2-ataxia (3 g/kg), 3-delayed righting reflex and ataxia with dragging abdomen (2 g/kg), 4-loss of righting reflex (1 g/kg)
